The Shelf was the go-to place for books about various emotion-laden subjects including potty training, puberty, divorce, and grief.

People would often come in looking for a book to give to someone who\’d just lost a dog. The book from The Shelf that  I always recommended was
\”Dog Heaven\” by Cynthia Rylant.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&isbn=0590417010&itm=1

It\’s really funny and gentle and not too saccharine-sweet or sentimental. In Dog Heaven dogs spend all day running around through green fields chasing ducks and squirrels. Angels pet them and call them \”good dog\”, and God is a kindly old coot with an orange scarf around his neck who makes cat- and ice cream cone-shaped dog biscuits for his beloved dogs all day long.

Over the years I\’ve given that book to several people I know when they\’ve lost their pets, and I really do think they all liked it as much as I do.

Now I think it\’s time for me to finally pick up that book for my family and me..

VP had lived a nice long life with people who adored him and you can’t get much better than that.

Our last dog died 7 years ago. We’d had an Irish Setter before her who had become very ill at a relatively young age and we’d done all we could to save her…and she pulled through, then became ill with another disease and had to be put down. That was a tough tough death.

But Tuesday, she was an old dog and it was just time for her to go. She had always loved young things. Even tried to mother a baby bird we came across on the ground. So she was ecstatic over our son H.o.p. She spent her last few months following the baby around, always smiling and happy despite her arthritis and hip dysplasia. She died suddenly but we had a chance to say goodbye. And it was OK.

Over the next several years we lost our animal family to, essentially, old age.

We didn’t feel like going through this again for a long while so instead we got fish.

Last weekend our first goldfish, who was about 10 inches, who we’d raised from the size of a fingernail and was only three years old, who we’d come to think of as being Big Mighty God Fish, died. He was hard to lose. He had personality. But no it’s not the same as losing a dog or a cat.

Hope your kids are doing all right. This has got to be hard on them.

I have one other old dog, Ivan, who’s 11 or 12 and fading fast. But I stil sit patiently and feed him by hand if that’s what it takes to get him to eat, and clean up after him till it’s time to let him go.

We do have 2 other dogs. Bouncer is 7, Jasper 2, so with any luck, we’ll have them around for a while. But it’s so hard to let any of them go.

All I can say about the timing issue is: Don\’t worry; I think that YOU WILL KNOW when the time has come.
We had the same discussions and worries over the past several months,  but somehow knew that the VP was not ready to go yet. He too kept eating and could walk around and seemed happy — and he didn\’t seem like he was in any pain at all.

Then when we came home after going out to dinner Thursday night, it was obvious that some kind of neurological event had happened:

When we got home we saw that he had suddenly started  holding his head and neck turned upwards as if he were sniffing the breeze, but he could not move his head in any other position. He was also suddenly staggering and stumbling — far more pronounced than he ever did before. It seemed like he could only control one side of his body — as if he\’d had a stroke.

That was it: we all knew that the time had come. There was no doubt in our minds at all.
We could not tell if he was in any pain at all, but just the way he suddenly was only able to stagger, and with control over only one side of his body, it must have been terribly disorienting and confusing for him at the very least. It was just time.

That night, my husband slept on the floor next to him, and at 7 am Friday morning we called our vet and arranged to bring him to the vet\’s office at 9 am. The VP ate his morning meal like he always did, and was calm and quiet as we brought him to the vets.

The kids said they could not bear the thought of being there to see him put to sleep, but my husband and I both were there with him. Again, it was very calm and quiet. I know the VP was happy to be surrounded by members of his \”pack\” (us) and the vet and his nurses, all old friends who have known the VP since we got him when he was a not-so-venerable puppy only 4 months old.

We requested cremation and that the ashes be returned to us. We know it was the right time, and absolutely the right thing to do.

I\’m just sayin — Please don\’t worry about the decision you need to make. There\’s a very good chance that something will change or happen to make your decision clear, and you will also know it absolutely when the time comes for your dog.

Good luck and warm wishes to you all.